Hou Yifan won the Women's Grand Prix tournament in Lopota, Georgia on Tuesday after dominating the event from start to finish. The 20-year-old Chinese grandmaster eventually scored 9.0/11 (a 2772 performance), and that was 2 points more than Ju Wenjun of China and Elina Danielian Armenia. Hou won €10,000 with her victory.

After the second rest day the last three rounds were played on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Hou Yifan was enjoying a commanding lead, being 1.5 points ahead of Ju Wenjun and Nana Dzagnidze. In the 9th round she immediately increased that lead to a full two points.

Third seeded Anna Muzychuk, who recently changed federations back to Ukraine, had an off-day:

In the same round, the game between Danielian and Koneru saw a dramatic finish.

A 3000+ performance was theoretically possible, but the next day the women's world champion decided to secure her first place in the tournament with a quick (but entertaining!) draw against ex-world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk.

Hou Yifan finished with another draw, against Danielian, to set her final score at a splendid 9.0/11. She won 18.1 rating points in Lopota to reach 2647.1 in the live ratings - only 28.9 points behind Judit Polgar.

Khotenashvili made her home crowd happy with a crushing victory over Koneru:

Lopota GP 2014 | Final Standings

#

Name

Rtg

Perf

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

1

2

Pts

SB

1

Hou Yifan

2629

2772

1

½

1

½

1

½

½

1

1

1

1

9.0/11

2

Ju Wenjun

2532

2616

0

1

½

½

1

½

0

1

1

1

½

7.0/11

34.75

3

Danielian,E

2460

2623

½

0

½

½

½

1

½

1

1

½

1

7.0/11

34.00

4

Dzagnidze,N

2541

2582

0

½

½

½

0

1

½

½

1

1

1

6.5/11

5

Harika,D

2503

2553

½

½

½

½

½

0

1

½

½

½

1

6.0/11

30.75

6

Stefanova,A

2488

2555

0

0

½

1

½

0

1

½

1

½

1

6.0/11

27.75

7

Koneru,H

2613

2513

½

½

0

0

1

1

½

½

½

0

1

5.5/11

28.75

8

Kosteniuk,A

2532

2520

½

1

½

½

0

0

½

0

½

1

1

5.5/11

27.25

9

Muzychuk,A

2561

2517

0

0

0

½

½

½

½

1

½

1

1

5.5/11

23.75

10

Zhao Xue

2538

2387

0

0

0

0

½

0

½

½

½

½

1

3.5/11

11

Khotenashvili,B

2518

2351

0

0

½

0

½

½

1

0

0

½

0

3.0/11

12

Muminova,N

2332

2218

0

½

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

1.5/11

xxx

The FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2013–2014 is a series of six chess tournaments with all players playing four. Bela Khotenashvili won the first, in 2013 in Geneva. Also in 2013, Humpy Koneru won both the Grand Prixs in Dilijan and in Tashkent and Hou Yifan has now won both 2014 events, in Khanty-Mansiysk and Lopota.

The GP winner will challenge the 2014 women's world champion in a ten-game match. Should the Grand Prix winner be the 2014 World Champion, the Grand Prix runner-up will play the 2015 championship. These are the standings with one more leg to go (24 August – 7 September 2014in Erdenet, Mongolia):

Kommentare

Chessdoggblack: "Out with the old, in with the young. Polgar must step down. There is a new kid on the block. Hou Yifan is the new hot shot of women chess champions. "

I am very confused. From what must Polgar step down? She never was (to my knowledge) active in women's chess, much less the women's world champion. I believe that except for a few very early tournaments, she always refused to play in women's events. (It's probably WHY she got as good as she did - she insisted on playing the very best opposition). She was number 7 or 8 of either gender at her peak, and she is still in the top 100 of either gender - the only such woman as Hou is now somewhere around 150 I think(?). You can see a marked deterioration in Polgar's play but that's because she has chosen to focus on chess promotion and education. She plays competetively only rarely and is rusty, as anyone would be in similar circumstances.

Hou is naturally almost certainly as gifted as Polgar was, and her chess is clearly on a higher level than that of her competitors. She could become a super-GM. But she is not giving her talent the food it needs to grow to the next level by focusing on these events where she outrates everyone by a hundred points or more. She needs more events like Tata Steel!

She is astonishly good with the black pieces, holds a 40% win rate with them. 5 wins at this tournament with them. I remember her wins in Tata Steel over Giri, Sokolov, and Harikrishna all came with black.

Hou Yifan is probably more comfortable then other GM's but her style is different... Also Gm's probably know the same amount as she does, but they choose to not use a different thing every time ex. death matches (even though they are not GM's all the time it is similar)

Is it my imagination or does Hou Yifan use a wide variety of openings be it black or white she plays with?? Her knowledge of openings seems so extensive and she seems very comfortable with any & all openings.

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